“Appropriation and hybridization are two of the hallmarks of Black art forms (think of sampling in hip-hop) which is also true of experimental art. How come Black art isn’t seen as synonymous with experimentation? And how come the opposite is so often true? Why are Black artists, along with other racial minorities, usually excluded from the so-called avant garde?”
Archives for January 2016
The U.S. Art Industry Has Begun (Re)Invading Cuba
“At 331 Art Space in Havana, visitor traffic has gotten so heavy that it’s cutting into work hours. Adrian Fernandez, who shares the space with two other artists, said that in the past six months the studio has received guests from Facebook, Google, UPS, the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian. ‘At least we try to have the mornings free—then people come in the afternoon—but as we have more demand that has gotten harder,’ said the 31-year-old photographer.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs For 01.31.16
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2016-01-31
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond JazzPublished 2016-01-31
The Gentrification Of San Diego Killed An Experimental Arts Space, And Hasn’t Replaced It Yet
“‘This will diminish the opportunity for the arts to be present on a continuing basis in the central part of San Diego,’ he said. ‘And that’s the kernel of the issue. Let’s not forget that.'”
The Top Things The Washington Post Learned From Nielsen’s ‘Peak TV’ Numbers
Out of 1400 (fourteen hundred!) TV shows, AMC ended up being one of the big winners: “‘Mad Men’ and ‘Breaking Bad’ are gone, but how would AMC even notice? ‘The Walking Dead’ (19.4 million) is the third-most watched show on all of television. The next-highest cable show? Spin-off ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ (11.8 million).”
Yvonne Chouteau Was One Of The ‘Five Moons,’ Native American Ballerinas Of Oklahoma
“A child prodigy as a dancer — she liked to joke that if one reversed the syllables in her surname, ‘Chou-teau’ became ‘Toe-shoe’ — Ms. Chouteau started dancing when she was 2 1/2 years old. She received early training in Oklahoma and then in New York City, where she attended the School of American Ballet. She was accepted into the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at 14.”
Disney Animated Movies Taught An Autistic Boy To Speak, And Now There’s A Movie About Him
“We ask parents all the time: What is your child’s passion? And they come up with all sorts of things: dinosaurs, maps, Harry Potter, Thomas the Tank Engine, Star Wars. We’ve surveyed thousands of people with these challenges and most have some video-related affinity. The passion is almost always one of a video nature. They can stop and rewind the images, slow it down and use them like the Dead Sea Scrolls to figure out social interactions; to hold a mirror up to the themselves.”
The Globe Is Taking Its All-Country ‘Hamlet’ To The Refugee Camp In Calais Known As ‘The Jungle’
“We’re here for the people who need stimulus… they are in an environment that is not providing any excitement [or] nourishment for the brain.”
Carol Burnett Takes On Gender Discrimination In Comedy (Again)
“I had a terrific and unheard-of contract that said that all I had to do was push the button, and the network would have to give me 30 one-hour variety shows. Yeah. And I told them that that’s what I wanted to do. But they said ‘Carol, no no no no, look. All the comedy variety shows are hosted by men. Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, now Dean; comedy variety is a man’s game.’ Mm-mm. No.”
What The Hell Is Going On With The Harold Pinter Estate And The Wooster Group In Los Angeles?
“It is not clear how theater critics will respond to the request that they not review the Los Angeles run, which begins performances on Thursday. An offended actor/playwright, Colin Mitchell, published on the local theater website Bitter Lemons a plea for defiance: ‘Let’s flood the LA Media outlets with writing about this show.’ The theater critic for The Los Angeles Times, Charles McNulty, said Thursday that he was in discussion with his editors.”
Teaching An Old Met Some New, Or Rather Contemporary, Tricks
“The Met Breuer’s debut marks a moment in which Campbell is tweaking one of America’s most venerable institutions so that it might more broadly fulfill its mission of being an encyclopedic museum — and to be generally more accessible to the public physically, digitally and in the stories about art it chooses to tell.”
Jhumpa Lahiri Says Writing In Italian Makes Her A ‘Tougher, Freer’ Writer
“A week after arriving, I open my diary to describe our misadventures and I do something strange, unexpected. I write my diary in Italian. I do it almost automatically, spontaneously. I do it because when I take the pen in my hand I no longer hear English in my brain. During this period when everything confuses me, everything unsettles me, I change the language I write in.”
The Two Newest Breakthrough Stars From This Year’s Sundance
“‘I’m not the boasting type,’ said Mr. Christmas, who lives in Los Angeles. ‘With all these people coming up to me to congratulate me, I started blushing a little bit. I was saying to myself, “Cut it out. Cut it out. Just play it cool.”‘”
Denmark Dancers Fight (Using Ballet, Of Course) To Change Country’s Perception Of Refugees
“It’s very important, especially in Denmark, where a lot of people are afraid of asylum seekers and refugees. I think it’s very important to see that they are human beings and they have all kind of skills and qualifications.”
Opera Has To Deal With Issues Around Race, Gender, And Orientation – But How?
“Opera is a complex, historic art form, with its own arcane formal language. Rather than think of it as entertainment, it makes more sense to conceive of it as a vast archive of emotional, historical, social and theatrical data. Opera allows us to enter into, understand and actually feel emotions that are culturally and historically extremely distant from our own time and sensibility.”
New York’s Attorney General (*Finally*) Goes After Shady Ticketing Practices By The Biggest Firms Out There
“‘Ticketing is a fixed game,’ Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement. ‘My office will continue to crack down on those who break our laws, prey on ordinary consumers and deny New Yorkers affordable access to the concerts and sporting events they love. This investigation is just the beginning of our efforts.'”
Turkish Police Uncover Stolen Picasso In Art Sting
“The operation targeted alleged art thieves attempting to sell the painting Woman Dressing Her Hair which was stolen from a collector in New York, Anatolia said.”
The Most Prolific Session Drummer Prepares For His Solo Career
“Back when he recorded his first tracks, studio musicians weren’t appreciated or even known by name outside the record industry. But Purdie was one of the foremost sidemen to advocate for his own visibility, and few others had his charisma or cockiness. Everywhere he goes, Purdie is called upon to play his defining creation, the Purdie Shuffle, a notoriously complex four-limb beat that he invented (and quickly named after himself) in his salad days.”
The Things We Learned At (And From) Sundance
Nick Jonas is a decent actor, Netflix & Amazon are big players, next year’s Oscars probably won’t be so white and much more.
We Want To Believe We’re ‘Natural,’ But All Humans Eat Seriously Artificial Food Every Day
“Canned and frozen fruits and vegetables in winter eliminated the scurvy that had plagued the northern United States. Iodized salt did away with the goiter belt of the Midwest. More nutritious, safer food contributed to a taller population that lived longer. Life expectancy increased from under 50 years in 1900 to around 75 at the end of the 20th century.”
SAG Awards Thumb Their Noses At The All-White Oscars, And Reward ‘Spotlight’ Too
“‘This is what happens when you have the SAG group — a group of very diverse people who understand the work that we all put in and that we all deserve the same opportunities,’ Queen Latifah told The Times backstage. ‘That’s about it. I feel very positive about this day.'”
Why Isn’t Jazz More Popular? Could It Be The Jazz Police?
“The notion that jazz is or isn’t is actually antithetical to the spirit of this music and all of the artists who have pushed its boundaries. Trying to make this music fit into a neat little box just can’t happen. And that’s tough for some people. We crave definitions for our art, and when we can’t describe or compare it, many get frustrated. Hence, the Jazz Police.”
Foreign-Accent Syndrome – The Words Are The Same, But The Accent…
“Foreign-accent syndrome is similar to aphasia, a communication disorder that can cause a variety of speech problems, often after a stroke or brain injury. But that doesn’t explain psychogenic foreign-accent syndrome. And, if patients’ speech is just impaired, why would that register as a different accent?”
Contemplating Death – Poignancy Of The End-Of-Life Memoir
“All this attention comes not from a greater understanding of mortality but from a greater ignorance of it. The promises of religion are replaced by the promise of science, yet medicine fails to vanquish its ultimate foe, instead rendering death more obscure, a matter for procrastination.”
Why Do We Love Great First Sentences? (It’s A Recent Phenomenon)
“The beloved first sentence is the product of dramatic changes one hundred and fifty years into the novel’s history. There are ample studies of the rise of the novel, but the move that would become the novel’s calling card has virtually no critical history.”